Position Statement – 2025
A.7683 (Lavine) / S.6910 (Hoylman-Sigal)
Support
The Women’s Bar Association of the State of New York (“WBASNY”) supports the passage of A.7683 (Lavine)/S.6910 (Hoylman-Sigal), which would reform the Notary Public Law to reflect that Notary Publics shall not be required to create or retain any notarial record of any notarial act when the notarization is in person.
Current law requires Notary Publics in New York to retain transaction records for 10 years. The goal of the law was to prevent fraud. Still, it had the unintended consequence of creating onerous record keeping requirements for attorneys and other professions that already have ethical requirements they must already abide by, such as those set forth under the New York State Rules of Professional Conduct. While the initial reforms to the law governing notaries modernized the process and provided access to notarial services for a broader group of individuals these sweeping changes, including the provisions regarding record keeping and reporting duties, required attorneys to dedicate significant time to paperwork despite having other ethical responsibilities. The initial reforms to the law have resulted in reporting and documentation requirements for attorneys, which are, in most cases, duplicative and unnecessarily burdensome. The notary requirements have led to chilling effects, resulting in some attorneys refusing to be a notary. Our support is based on our belief that this reform will significantly reduce the administrative burden on attorneys and improve the efficiency of the legal community.
WBASNY supports A.7683 (Lavine)/S.6910 (Hoylman-Sigal) and urges the legislature to pass this legislation.
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